by Kelley York
Mom puts her purse on the countertop and turns to the fridge. “I don’t hide things from you to be mean, Victor. It’s my business and I choose to keep it that way.”
Without thinking, I close the distance between us, planting a hand against the fridge door and pushing it shut as she tries to open it. “It was your b-business until you told Ruthie, whose son told the whole damn school. Everyone seems to know but me.”
Mom pulls back as though struck. Not by my words so much as the meaning behind them…that people know. Whatever her secret is, people know and it’s all her fault. “What?”
“Aaron already admitted he heard it from Ruthie.” My eyes narrow. “My dad went to jail for s-something, didn’t he?”
She takes a half step away from me. The tension slides through her jaw as she clenches her teeth. “Yes…he did, around the time you were born. For fifteen years.”
Fifteen years… “So he’s out now?”
“Unless he’s been arrested again and I haven’t heard about it.” The moment I lean away from the fridge, she yanks the door open and grabs the carton of eggs. She places them on the counter and turns her back to me to dig through a cupboard. I doubt she knows what she’s making; she probably just wants something to do with her hands so she doesn’t have to put all her attention on me.
If cooking will help her relax enough to talk to me, then whatever. “What was he imprisoned for?”
She removes other ingredients. Chocolate chips, flour, baking powder. Her voice has become strained. “I don’t want to get into it.”
“His name is Don, right?” I stand my ground despite the wobble in her tone that suggests I’m about to reduce her to tears. “I c-can look it up. Mr. Mason could probably find him if he has a p-police record. So why don’t you spare us that and just tell me?”
Mom goes still. I see the rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathes in deep, once, twice, and then she turns with an egg in her hand and tears beginning to slide down her face. I will not feel guilty. I will not regret my decision to get answers that everyone but me seems to have.
“He raped me. Is that what you wanted to hear, Victor? We were dating and he raped me and I had you.”
She throws the egg at my feet. It cracks to pieces of white and yellow mush and splatters my shoes and I stare at it while the words resonate in my head.
Like father, like son. That’s what they said. That’s what they meant.
Some part of me had to have suspected it. That simple sentence gave it away and I purposely chose to ignore it, to turn my head and pretend it was anything but the truth. I brace a hand against the counter and force myself to look at her.
I quietly ask, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are red, the tears gleaming on her face. She does not look at me like I’m her son. She stares at me as someone she is afraid of, someone she can’t stomach seeing. “Because you look just like him.”
There it is.
The one thing that brings every other question into sharp focus. For a long while, Mom and I stare at each other, into the raw, open wounds we’ve inflicted on each other. Her with the secrets she’s kept, and me for wrenching them away from her and making her unwrap an injury that has clearly never fully healed.
I must be utterly useless because I can’t think of anything to say. No comfort to offer. Nothing at all. The only thing I can think to do to ease her pain is to turn around and walk away so she doesn’t have to see my face.
Chapter Eleven
My default reaction in any kind of stressful situation is to call Brett, and yet as I stare at his name on my phone, I can’t bring myself to do it this time. Perhaps because there’s too much history there. Perhaps because I know he’ll squeeze my shoulder and promise me everything will be okay.
Sympathy: feeling pity and sorrow for another’s misfortunate.
Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Brett can sympathize with me, but he cannot empathize. This is the nature of our friendship. He cares and he’s fiercely protective and his life has not been without problems, but the nature of his problems has been different from mine. While Brett worried about what kind of car to get, scoring in the highest percentile in all the standardized testing, who he was going to take to prom, and high-profile cases his dad worked on, I was silently dealing with Mom’s alienation of me, of the entire school barely noticing I existed, of wondering if we’d have the money to swing Christmas, and living in Brett’s shadow while he shone.
I lean back against the park bench with a sigh. Staying at home seemed like a bad idea and so I came here. Mom used to bring me to this playground when I was little. Then, when we got older, Brett and I came on our own, riding our bikes. It’s dark out and the last kid went home thirty minutes ago. Anyone who shows up now will likely be someone I don’t want to associate with, but I don’t know where to go if I don’t want to see my only friend right now.
Well…maybe that isn’t entirely true. I look at the number written on my hand. One of the digits is smeared beyond recognition, but I stared at it so much today that I remember what it is by heart. I start a new contact entry to save her digits before I lose them entirely and have to look like a moron asking her for them again.
Autumn said I could call her. Did she mean it? Did she mean I could call her about Callie or the case? My stomach rolls anxiously as I push the green phone symbol on the screen and it dials.
One, two, three rings, and Autumn answers, “Hello?”
I’m so excited I almost forget to answer. “Uh, hi.”
She pauses. “Vic? That you?”
“Y-yeah. It’s me.” Funny how the sound of her voice instantly puts me both at ease and on edge. It calms me and yet I suddenly can’t sit still.
“Oh, hey. What’s up?”
“N-not much. Just…you know. Hanging out.” God, how lame am I? I should’ve thought out what I would say before I called. I could’ve made something up. “You?”
“Ehh, homework. My parents are gone, though, so I might crash on the couch and watch a movie and stay up way too late.”
A smile tugs at my mouth. “You rebel, you.”
“Oh yeah, that’s me.” She chuckles. “If you’re not busy, you should come by.”
Busy, me? I look around at the empty park. The darker it gets, the more unsettling this place is. I’ve never been here when the sun goes down. “It m-might take me a while to get there.” I didn’t bring my bike. The park was only a few blocks away and so I walked. Going to Autumn’s would require me to head back and get it.
“Shit, that’s right. Are you at home? I’ll come get you.” Already I can tell she’s getting up and rustling around. For her shoes or her keys, maybe.
“You d-don’t have to do that,” I say, but the idea that Autumn wants to spend time with me and is even willing to pick me up? At least for a few seconds, it blocks out the memory of what just happened at home.
“Where are you?” she asks patiently.
I pull my legs up, wondering if I should go home so she doesn’t ask questions, but… “At Manzanita Park. Up the street from my house.”
“Give me ten and I’ll be there.”
She hangs up before I have a chance to respond. While I wait, Brett texts to ask me if I’m staying at home tonight or what and I just respond, Yeah I’m good for now.
It’s Friday. He hates being home Friday nights; it’s the one night of the week he escapes the weight of homework, studying, and college applications, and I don’t feel like going out to a movie or a party with him and his friends. Especially not now. I don’t want my “rapist” label to affect his social life.
As promised, Autumn pulls into the parking lot about ten minutes later. The headlights almost blind me as I trot over to her car with my hands pocketed and slide into the passenger’s seat. In the dim lighting of the dashboard buttons, I see Autumn is already in her pajamas. Black sweats and flip-flops and a tan
k top with her long hair up in a messy, weird sort of twist only girls know how to make sense of. Some kind of female hair magic or something. And she looks so beautiful.
She grins. “Where ya headed, babe?”
“Vegas,” I say playfully.
“Mm, Vegas. I’m a’headed that way. S’pose I could take you, for a price.” She makes it a point to look me over and give an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle.
I laugh quietly and Autumn pulls out of the parking lot to head for her place. At least this time when we come inside, I don’t think there are any surprises—like Callie—ready to ambush me. Autumn ditches her shoes by the front door, and I’m suddenly feeling the weight of how awkward this is. Here with Autumn. At night. Alone. This is not the best situation to put myself in given the charges against me, and then I have to think about how sad it is that I have to even stop and consider such a thing.
“Make yourself at home,” Autumn says, disappearing into what I assume is the kitchen. I glance around and toe off my shoes, self-conscious of the hole in my sock. I shuffle to the couch and slowly sit down. It’s obvious this is where she was when I called her. There’s a blanket on the opposite end, a water bottle, a half-eaten bowl of popcorn. It’s that exact spot Autumn takes back up residence in when she returns with a soda for each of us.
I take the offered can, grateful for the excuse to stare at my hands for a while. There’s an open notebook lying faceup on the coffee table with names I recognize. When I lean over to look, I realize just what those names are. “These are…”
“People who were at the party,” Autumn confirms, cracking open her can and taking a long drink. “I told you, I’m going to find out who did this. You said you were gonna help me, right?”
She draws the notebook over so it’s open on both our legs, and offers me a pen. I can think of a few names—Patrick, Devon—she doesn’t have on here yet, so I add them at the end of the list.
“Anything you remember about any of these guys?” she asks.
I skim the list, thinking hard. It’s easier for me to scribble the thoughts that come to me on the page: Aaron, hanging with Brett and a group of guys, last I saw. Chris Christopher, Robbie, sharing a joint when I came back down from leaving Callie. They probably saw me. For that matter… “Patrick was heading upstairs as I was coming down,” I recall quietly.
Autumn squints. “Patrick. Which one is he?”
“Patrick Maloney. Aaron Biggs’s best friend. Tall, big. Shaved head.”
“Oh, kind of scary-looking? Okay.” She takes the pen from my hand and puts a question mark next to Patrick’s name. “I wonder if the cops already talked to him. If he went upstairs after you left, maybe he saw something.”
Or did something, I think. Though it’s hard to picture anyone I know—even if they’re assholes—raping someone. It’s such an inhuman thing to do.
I think of another name and add it to the book. “So, um, where are your p-parents?”
“Tahoe.” She drags a blanket across herself. It’s hot outside but the air-conditioning must be on high because it’s actually a little chilly in here. “Once a month or so, they take ‘date weekends.’”
“Date weekends?”
“Yup. Weekends where they go out of town, just the two of them. Keeping their romance fresh and exciting or something equally nauseating.” She shrugs. “It means I get the place to myself a few days a month, so I’m not going to complain.”
I can’t help but marvel at that. “My m-mom would never leave me home alone for the w-weekend.”
A smirk graces her pretty face, but she doesn’t look at me as she flips channels. “Why not? Aren’t you almost eighteen?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “B-but she’s kind of…”
“Overprotective?”
Hardly. “More like she doesn’t trust me. I guess.”
I don’t mean for the words to leave my tongue sounding so melancholy. Maybe the scalding news she dropped on me earlier has sapped me of any energy I might normally put into making it sound like not a big deal.
Autumn looks over. I can’t read her expression and so I ask, “W-what?”
She says, “You strike me as a very lonely person, Vic.”
I relocate my gaze to the television where a muted sitcom plays. You can always tell by the pause of the actors where the canned laughter comes into play. “I d-don’t know what makes you say that.”
“Because I know what lonely people sound like.” Her eyes don’t waver from me. “You’ve got one friend at school, you walk around with your head down…I was a lot like that before I met Callie. People thought because I didn’t talk to anyone it meant I was some goth bitch or something.” Before I can comment on that, she continues. “And your mom. I mean, no offense, but what kind of mom believes her son—who’s never really gotten into trouble before—raped a girl?”
“You believed it,” I murmur.
“I’m not your mother. I didn’t push you out of my vagina—”
“Gross.”
“—or change your diapers, or bathe you, or teach you right from wrong well enough that I would know without a doubt you wouldn’t do something like that.” She sets her soda on the coffee table and twists around to face me better. “I mean, jeez, I’ve known you only a few weeks and I’d say I’m convinced you aren’t capable of that.”
“Oh, so now you think I’m innocent?”
She looks away, shrugging. “Callie and I have been talking about it.”
That could be a really good thing or a really bad thing. “Oh.”
“It’s just hard for her, you know? Like, she remembers things, but she doesn’t know if what she’s remembering is accurate or just her brain trying to fill in the blanks. But what she’s remembering makes her know that it wasn’t you.”
Her words make my chest ache as they shine light on all the things I’ve thought about. Lonely? Yeah, I guess I am. It’s why I’ve resigned myself to being Brett’s shadow all these years…because if I didn’t, who would I be? Who is Vic without Brett? I’m barely anything with him; I would be nothing without him.
Mom…of course I’ve asked myself again and again why she didn’t believe me. Now I know the answer.
“My dad’s a rapist,” I blurt out.
Autumn’s spine stiffens visibly with surprise. “Say what?”
“Mom told me earlier tonight. She got pregnant with me after my dad raped her.” Funny how that one piece of information set so many things into place. It was a traumatic event she never got past. She’s never trusted men, never dated, never seemed to think much of them. Even her friends’ husbands were cheats and slobs and liars as far as she was concerned. I guess it was a matter of time before she began to think the same of me. She named me after her—Victor and Victoria—so I would be hers, right? To associate me as her child and not his. I was her whole world, until I started to get older and looked less and less like her sweet little boy, and more and more like the man who hurt her.
Autumn’s posture softens a little and she scoots closer. “That’s what Marco was talking about, huh? Oh, Vic… You’re not your dad.”
I can’t say to her that it doesn’t matter what sort of person I really am, because as far as my mother is concerned, I’m already guilty of everything. Maybe I’m not a good person. Maybe I’m destined to be like him when I get older. Maybe Mom sees something in me that I don’t.
The words catch in my teeth and force tears to my eyes and—fuck. No. I’m not crying in front of Autumn. I won’t. I can’t. If this new friendship is going to head anywhere, I don’t want to screw it up. I’m clinging to fibers of sanity enough as it is and she already has so much to deal with trying to be there for Callie and…
“You’re a good person, Vic,” Autumn whispers against my ear. I don’t remember her putting her arms around me but there they are, loosely hung on my shoulders with her palm cradling my head against her shoulder and the notebook discarded on the floor. Her fingers slide through my hair. And it’s not lik
e I’m openly sobbing or anything, but I feel the tears stinging my eyes and threatening to fall free. I squeeze my eyes shut and turn my face into her neck, breathing in deep.
She smells like mint and soap, and her skin is warm and soft, her touch gentle, and I think that maybe this is all I’ve really wanted. Not Brett’s sympathetic hand on my shoulder, not Mom’s accusing stares or Mr. Mason’s lectures. All I wanted was someone to tell me that they believe me, in me, a pair of arms around me that promise a better tomorrow. A little faith in who I am as a person…that’s all I had secretly hoped for. Even as guilty as I feel for taking comfort in anything right now, I find myself leaning into Autumn, slipping my arms around her middle.
Neither of us says anything else. Eventually I find myself sliding down until my head is in her lap, my gaze focused blurrily on the TV. Autumn has managed to twist the blanket around weirdly to cover us both. Now and again her hand strokes my hair, the side of my face. We watch Friday night sitcoms and let the live audience do the laughing for us. When I fall asleep, it’s to the sound of her breathing in and out. Maybe I don’t feel entirely better, but this? This is definitely a start.
Chapter Twelve
An unfamiliar ringtone jars me awake in the morning. It takes me a minute to place it—Oasis’s “Wonderwall”—and that it’s coming from Autumn’s phone on the table. She grunts awake, and I turn my head enough to look up at her. She fell asleep sitting up, and her hair is mostly fallen down from its hair tie and she just might be the best thing in the world to wake up to even as she’s scowling in her attempt to become coherent. I reach for her phone and offer it up to her. Callie’s name flashes across the screen. She answers it groggily. “Oh my God, it’s too early.”
The voice on the line says, “It’s like nine o’clock. That’s not early.”
“It’s early for a Saturday.” She stretches her legs out, arches her spine, tilts her head from side to side to work the kinks out of her neck. All while holding the phone with one hand and sliding her fingers over my hair with the other. The affectionate gesture makes a pleasant little tingle work its way down my spine, and I close my eyes to enjoy it as long as I can.